The present invention generally pertains to signal processing and is particularly directed to processing of a signal received by an array of antennas for the purpose of enhancing information that resulted from propagation of the signal from a signal source and for suppressing interference with said information.
The propagated signal is a particular sequence of modulated symbols that represent a message.
An example of a known signal source of a set of predetermined signal sources is a remote station in a radio network that includes a set of remote stations.
It is known to process sample vectors of a signal received simultaneously by an array of antennas to estimate a weight for each sample vector that maximizes the energy of the individual sample vector that resulted from propagation of the signal from a known signal source of a set of predetermined signal sources and/or minimizes the energy of the sample vector that resulted from interference with propagation of the signal from the known signal source; to combine each of the sample vectors with the weight that is estimated for the respective sample vector to provide a plurality of weighted sample vectors; and to sum the plurality of weighted sample vectors to provide a resultant weighted sample vector in which the known information is enhanced and the interference is suppressed.
A sample vector of a signal is a temporal sequence of measured values of the signal sampled over a predetermined duration. An estimated weight is a complex value. The sample vector of a signal that is received by an antenna is a sum of desired information and interference, with different complex weightings.